Prior to the invention described below, financial data processing, utilizing a system such as is described in our co-pending U.S. Pat. Application, Ser. No. 750,912, was performed using an essentially bi-level system comprising a plurality of distributed processors at the mini-computer level, each having a plurality of interactive video display terminals ("VDT's") and other peripheral equipment, such as printers, associated therewith, with each distributed mini-computer processor further being connected to and interfacing with a mainframe host computer.
Although this bi-level system operates satisfactorily, it is believed that the efficiency of the overall system can be improved. The operation of this system is dependent, to a large part, on the rate at which data can be input into the system by the individual operators using the VDT's connected to the distributed mini-computer processors, in real-time, and in a time-sharing mode. The capability of each individual distributed mini-computer processor to accept data being input thereto greatly exceeds the rate at which individual operators can manually input such data via the computer keyboard. The full data processing capability of the mini-computers, moreover, is not utilized even where a plurality of VDT's are connected thereto in time-sharing mode. The system is limited, in some instances, particularly at large branch office sites, by the relatively small number of VDT's which can actually be connected to a single distributed mini-computer because of hardware limitations, such as the number of VDT ports that a single mini-computer can accommodate. In other instances, the full data processing capability of the mini-computer is not utilized because of the relatively small number of VDT's, less than the maximum number which can be connected to a single mini-computer in time-sharing mode, which actually interface with a single mini-computer serving one or more branch offices. Finally, even when a plurality of VDT's connected to a mini-computer are simultaneously being utilized for the manual input of data into the memory storage devices associated with the mini-computer, in real-time, or time-sharing modes, since the process is relatively slow it prevents the mini-computer from performing other important processing tasks internally.
For these reasons, a further improvement to the financial data processing system as set forth in co-pending U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No. 750,912, has been developed specifically to overcome the above limitations and to avoid unduly restricting the processing capability of the mini-computers in the system by releasing them from the function of processing input data being entered into the system by relatively slow-speed manual entry via keyboard from VDT's connected to the mini-computer in time-sharing mode, thereby increasing the overall data processing efficiency of this system.